EVANS, SAMUEL

EVANS, SAMUEL (1831–?). Samuel Evans, farmer, stock raiser, state representative, and state senator, was born in Garrard County, Kentucky, on October 28, 1831, the son of Hezekiah and Nancy (Cole) Evans. Evans was raised in Kentucky and received a basic education. Between 1850 and 1853 Evans worked in that state as a schoolteacher. Later in 1853 Evans immigrated to Texas, establishing himself as a farmer and stock raiser in Tarrant County. Periodically he undertook trips to Galveston and New Orleans to buy and sell sheep and ponies. By the 1860s Evans owned approximately 300 acres of land in Tarrant County. In 1861 after the outbreak of the Civil War Evans raised a company of cavalry for service in the Confederate Army. He did not, however, muster with these men into the army. Instead he traveled to New Orleans and Montgomery, Alabama, before returning to Tarrant County. He raised a company of infantry here and mustered with this unit into the Twenty-first Texas Infantry Regiment. In February 1864 Evans married Sarah E. McGaffin. This couple had six sons and three daughters.

Following the war Evans returned to Tarrant County where he resumed farming. In addition he engaged in trading sheep, cotton, and cattle between New Orleans, Tarrant County, and Kansas. In 1866 Evans won election as representative for Tarrant County to the Eleventh Texas Legislature. He later served as a senator in the Twelfth and Thirteenth legislatures. During the 1870s Evans became disenchanted with the political status quo, rejected both the Democratic and Republican parties, and became a Populist. In 1877 he was the sole Texas delegate at the Greenback Party Convention in Memphis and later attended Populist conventions throughout the Midwest. In 1892 following the death of his first wife in 1887, Samuel Evans married Fanny L. Severance. It is unknown whether this couple had children. At the close of the century he owned 1,000 acres of land in and around Tarrant County. Samuel Evans died prior to 1906.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Tarrant and Parker Counties (Chicago: Lewis, 1895). Buckley B. Paddock, ed., A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis, 1906).